ChroniclesNov06

November 27th Update: A quiet Sunday morning on our rural piece of heaven is interrupted by a siren cirling the neighbourhood. Police? Ambulance? I go out to have a look. A small yellow Fire Service vehicle with lights flashing and siren alerting all and sundry to a back burn that is taking control of its own destiny, apparently. My day is then spent getting our property ready in case the marauding flames wish to dine upon our bamboo and rose bushes. It makes it's hungry way to the far end of the street, but further advances in that direction are thwarted by those gallant fire people. I continued with my worry wart ways until about 3 o'clock in the morning when the red glow and spot fires disappeared from the bathroom window. bush fire

Monday morning dawns thick with smoke and the sickening realisation that I had forgotten to turn the dam water pump off after finishing the mulch watering last night. Geesh! Down I go to castigate myself beside the now two-thirds empty dam and listen to the fires within 200 metres of our property. Up the hill is the famous little A frame house now engulfed in smoke. Before I can decide "Is this the moment to panic?" those wonderful Firies appear again in their trucks and commence back burning around our dam and said they would let me know when to panic. It's now 1400hrs and the Fire Warden Peter Newbury has been by to do a final check and again a Fire wagon has been down to the dam area so it seems my moment to panic has passed unrequited yet again. Will I ever get to panic? But it was pretty exciting for a while!

November 22nd Update: Now if you are reading this update from some far flung place or a town with more than one doctor, the criticality of it will fall on your deaf ears, probably. But read on so you know the tyrannies of living even in paradise.

Earlier in the month, I wrote about the new doctors coming to town from Iran. One lady, one chap (very handsome by the way!). However, today I called into the Agnes Water Medical Centre to have a few stitches removed from a potentially offending mole and found our doctor, the nurses and receptionists had decamped from their temporary quarters to their bright refurbished rooms. Still very stark but the bones where there (I must overcome this love of puns!).

There was something odd about the reception area though...but at first I couldn't put my finger on it. Then, it struck me - standing at the counter, I was looking directly at the Medical Centres computer screens up at head height. Previously they had been down on the receptionist's desk out of the patient's line of sight. Is this to comply with some new obscure AMA rule I wondered aloud?

Then I noticed there was no receptionist's chair to wheel about on the new polished concrete floor. Hmmm - has the dashing new Regent of our little village medical centre made some sweeping big city (well Gladstone) changes to liven up the practice? Well, OK - fair 'nough as long as someone standing beside me at the counter cannot also read my details on the puter screen. And as long as it's not me having to stand all day on that concrete floor without even an anti-fatigue mat and get tired/hassled then become distracted just when all her energies should be on assigning priorities or watching for a situation in the waiting room.

I asked the receptionist for the test results as the good doc and I had agreed two weeks prior that if anything bad he would phone me after his week away. And since he hadn't, I knew all was well but I like to have the confirmation. Receptionist looked me square in the eye and repeated the new dogma.

SHE: 'You will need to make an appointment with the doctor to get your test results'

SHE: 'To protect your privacy, the centre's new policy is that all results must be given by the doctor except in one or two common tests, they may be given by a registered nurse'

ME: 'So we have one overworked doctor and now I am supposed to take up his time with an appointment so he can tell me I am fine?'

ME: 'Sorry, but it sounds like a great way to rip off bulk billing - if something needs explaining then always an appointment with the doc is required but this new policy smacks'

Dear Regent - how about a practical policy for a village practice with overworked doctor and patients who suspect they may have some ownership over their test results - such as:

Patients are reminded that they must always either have an appointment with their doctor or practice nurse or telephone for ALL test results. Patients are requested to ring after 11 am for routine test results. Please note that our receptionists are not medically trained and as such are unable to discuss the intricacies and implications of medical results. As such where instructed, the receptionist may ask that you book an appointment with the doctor or nurse to discuss certain results. Please remember that it is your responsibility to follow up your own results.

Reading the local paper one suspects nothing happened in Agnes Water 1770 during September and October. Living here during September and October, I can confirm nothing happened which is OK for a sea-change village.

But now it is November and the place is about to start jumping (out of the way of snakes), scratching (from mossies and midgies) and skipping over the huge black horse flies that dive bomb any naked leg, arm, face, back etc. All we need now is the stingers to return to the beaches and we will know we are in the tropics.

Should you be reading this in any far flung corner of the world and be a carpenter or builder out of work or in work and earning less than the top 6% in your respective country, come here immediately.

Stand behind the Agnes water Museum in dead of night and whisper to a passing can toad that you are a carpenter or builder and then be prepared for the onslaught as people trample over each other to give you at least three months work in advance. If, however, you can read and write and make additions and quote a price and repeat it in less than 24 hours without doubling the figure then you will get a years work,no questions asked.

At least two of you are needed as of four months ago to help service our 3 - 4 thousand locals and 25 thousand per annum visitors. It is the policy in Queensland (the region of Australia in which Agnes Water resides) that if you can fit into a white coat, don't stick the round metal end up your nose when slinging a stethoscope around your neck and have a name no one can pronounce, therefore you can't be cited in malpractice suits from the grave, you can practice in Queensland if you come from that great wonderland called Overseas.

For too many months our one valiant doctor has held the fort incredibly and, young and fit as he is, I cannot imagine his being 24x7 only doc in town can last too much longer. I did hear a whisper (now confirmed) that we were going to be blessed with two Iranian doctors and rushed off to the local dress shop to buy a hijab (thinking no more bad hair days) but the local dress shop didn't stock these items - all for the best I suppose, Tom would have wanted a sheik's outfit.

STOP THE PRESS - Lock up the kids, keep the old folk inside - no doctor in Agnes Water all next week cos the real doc has to go on a conference and the newbies cannot minister unsupervised.

Where is the commitment to providing medical service here at Agnes Water by Queensland Health?????? My husband is not well - I cannot again risk 'being lucky' that an ambulance can get us to Bunderberg. Eventually will we have to move? Is that why this area may become a desert of over priced investment apartments with no occupants cos no one with kids or over 55 can live, with peace of mind, in an area that has no realiable medial serivce.

I would like to get something set up here especially as I am in the throws of building my observatory for this new baby. If you live locally would you drop me an email?

Test Results